


Dread

by appending_fic



Series: Guardians of the Planes [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Eberron, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Planescape (Roleplaying Game), Planescape: Torment
Genre: Backstory, Body Modification, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Telepathic Contact, Physical Abuse, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Rocket Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-26 02:46:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14991077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appending_fic/pseuds/appending_fic
Summary: Rocket is missing, which means, once they rule out him having abandoned the team, Starlord is fighting for a way to find him. We explore what made the Rocket born on Eberron the person he is today, while Tony Stark tries to fix everyone, whether they want him to or not.





	1. Mist

Something was wrong with Rocket.

That much was clear.

In the months since she'd joined the crew of the Quadrant, Mantis had grown to know each of them well. On leaving them, Nebula had left Mantis a pair of sturdy gloves, "to keep out of people's heads". Mantis had learned quickly not to delve into the minds of the crew without permission, and to never alter how they felt.

For so long she had worried they did not trust her, until one day, Gamora had sat her down in the galley. The others were off running some errand, so there was no other distraction.

“Are you happy here, Mantis?”

Mantis hadn’t expected the question, and chirruped in surprise. “Of course I am! You are all kind to me, even Rocket-“

Gamora snorted, a noise of disbelief, Mantis had learned, and she felt a little thrill of anger at that.

“Rocket _has_ been kind to me! He made me this bracelet, so no one may read my thoughts.” He _had_ said he’d done so to keep ‘nosy berks from getting past your pathetic defenses and getting the dark on all of us’, but he said many things like that to Peter - Starlord - and he liked Starlord a _great deal_ , so it was clearly the way he was.

Gamora nodded, but her face remained serious, a tightness in her expression. “I have noticed you seem nervous, sometimes, among us. You aren’t used to our lifestyle.”

“No, I am not. This is _better_ than my life with Ego! I have felt so many things I have never felt before-“

There it was, a shift in Gamora’s posture, a dimming, shuttering of the energy coming off of her. Mantis fell back, her excitement dulled, as well.

“What is it?”

“I…” None of the others were here, and Gamora did not speak much if she did not have to, so perhaps she would not share this with the others. “You do not trust me.”

“I don’t - what makes you believe that?”

“Because none of you will let me help you, even when I can feel how much you all hurt! And you, especially, I can feel you - close yourself up whenever you remember what I can do. I understand you worry I might seek to avenge Ego upon one of you. It is just. Difficult. Being around people I like so much who do not feel the same way.”

Gamora sighed, glanced away from Mantis. “I...apologize if I have made you feel unwanted. It has been...difficult adapting to your presence, but that has nothing to do with what I believe your intentions to be. What do you know of illithids, Mantis?”

Mantis shook her head; the name was almost familiar, but nothing she could recall.

“They are telepaths. Vicious, cunning. They subsist on the brains of sentient creatures, and can read thoughts, alter moods. My people fought a thousand-year-long war to be free of them. When I recall what you can do, it - takes a moment to remember that you would not.” She glanced at Mantis, smiling more gently than Mantis was used to from her. “If you can be patient, I’m certain I’ll come around.”

“Oh.” Mantis considered Gamora’s words for a minute. She _sounded_ sincere, but it didn’t explain the rest of the crew. “What about the rest of them?”

Gamora exhaled in a loud huff. “I’m pretty sure that’s on Rocket. I don’t know the details - I don’t think Groot or Peter do, for that matter - but he did not come from a good place, and someone like you - I don’t think he can remind himself as easily as I can that what’s important isn’t _what_ you can do so much as what you _wouldn’t_. Groot and Peter - I think they’re just being overprotective.”

Which made sense. Whenever Starlord gave her leave to touch him, usually to communicate something he thought would take too long to vocalize, she could sense the fierce love he felt for - well, all of the crew of the Quadrant, but Rocket especially. She hadn’t brought it up since she’d upset Starlord mentioning it aloud, but it was always there.

In the heat of battle or flight, when the undifferentiated emotions around Mantis became too much to bear, Starlord’s love was a beacon, a way for Mantis to center herself. 

It was as unwavering as what she’d sensed from Drax directed at her, though Drax’s love ( _for her_! It was strange, unexpected, that anyone would see her as more than a pet, a tool. But he must have felt so, because she was ugly and he did not need her to sleep, and he sought her company anyway) was not overlaid with the...complexities of Starlord’s feelings for Rocket.

“I can’t promise Rocket will ever trust you, or that Groot or Peter will see past his distrust. If that will continue to upset you-“

“Oh, no! Now that I understand, I can try to help Rocket understand I won’t hurt him. Besides…”

“Drax,” Gamora said. “He would be...disappointed if you left.”

“I would be sad to leave him as well.”

Gamora seemed content with the outcome of that conversation, because she didn’t bring it up again. She seemed to grow more comfortable with Mantis, though still refused to allow Mantis to let her sleep, or ease her burdens. She explained once, tersely, that there were dangerous thoughts in her mind, and wouldn’t risk Mantis encountering them. Which Mantis understood; there were creatures in the Planes whose minds were dangerous to enter. It was a sign _Gamora_ cared for her that she would warn Mantis against it.

But then Mantis made a terrible error. They had been tasked to hunt a vicious creature troubling an outpost in the Outlands. It was a psion of sorts, and proved powerful enough to breach _Rocket’s_ defenses (he was the most reserved of them, holding his emotions close enough Mantis could not feel his mind without touching, which she did _not_ have leave to do). He was curled in on himself, unresponsive, when Mantis reached him. It would take only a moment to rouse him, so, unthinking, she touched his forehead-

Particularly strong emotions could startle or daze Mantis, especially those troubling to the person feeling them. Mantis, however, had never experienced _pain_ from such emotions.

But Rocket’s mind was ablaze with misery; painful memories Mantis instinctively shielded herself from, knowing to witness them would be an unforgivable betrayal; self-loathing thoughts that left bruises on her own mind; _longing_ (she shied away from the thoughts that would lead to the target of those feelings); and pain so deeply rooted in his spirit she doubted the greatest telepaths could remove it.

But even through all that, there was one coherent thought. A question.

_What could change the nature of a man?_

Mantis was suddenly, unexpectedly free of the torment of Rocket’s mind. Starlord stood over her, face impassive; she flinched in anticipation of his anger at violating Rocket’s mind, but instead he squeezed her shoulder gently.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“I should’ve warned you,” he said, biting at his bottom lip, a sign of distress. “I didn’t want to - but whatever. You alright?”

“I...Rocket-“

“Hey, I’ve got this.” Starlord produced a slim glass rod, shrugged, “Well, Rocket does.” He pressed the rod against Rocket’s forehead. Rocket’s eyes fluttered open, a gentler awakening than Mantis’ own, and Starlord smiled at him gently. “Hey, any permanent damage, Buddy?”

“Permanent-“ Rocket scowled, climbing to his feet as he fumbled for his crossbow. “That sodding freak of nature’s gonna have permanent damage when I’m done with them. Hey, ugly!” He then broke into the burbling chatter of an unfamiliar language, which _did_ draw their foe’s attention.

Starlord hung back as Rocket enacted his vengeance on their target. He still look worried.

“I saw it when I had the Philosopher’s Stone,” he explained. “Whatever made him into...what he is...caused him a lot of pain. _Causes_ him a lot of pain. It didn’t do any permanent damage to _you_ , did it?”

Mantis shook her head hurriedly, considering for a moment explaining to Starlord that Rocket’s physical pain could not have hurt her. But delving into his mind, Rocket might forgive. Sharing his secrets, he would not.

He found her after the battle, knocking hesitantly at the door to her cabin before slipping in at her welcome. Rocket looked small, standing before her. He normally walked with a deliberate swagger, puffed himself up to take up more space, so seeing him making no such effort was a shocking reminder of his true size.

“Pete said you dug into my head when I got knocked out.”

“I am sorry! I only thought I would wake you-“

“It’s hende, bug-lady. Fine,” he added. “Just thought…” He shrugged.

“Are you alright, Rocket?”

“Fuck, no!” he barked out, before drawing back, ears flattening, frightened. Uncertain. “Look, Mantis. I got a lot of shit going through my head. I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. Kept out of my head, too.”

The thought of leaving a teammate - a friend - in pain was not a good one, but invading his thoughts was unthinkable. “I will promise. But Rocket, if it’s an emergency-“

“If you got no other choice, go ahead. But keep out of whatever you don’t need and keep _quiet_ ‘bout what you see.”

Mantis nodded, happy she had leave enough to protect Rocket if she needed to.

But it was upsetting, knowing he suffered alone. “If you ever want to talk-“

“Won’t be with a mindhacker,” Rocket snapped. “Had enough people messing around with me.”

Mantis nodded; Gamora had told her how Rocket felt, but it did not ease the hurt at his distrust. “Starlord worries. If you would feel comfortable-“

“Rather kiss the Lady, bug-girl. Look, I made it this far without talking about it. So I’ll be fine.”

He turned to leave, some of the hesitance in his movements gone. But there was one last thing; if she knew of it, Gamora wouldn’t forgive Mantis not asking.

“The old man in your memories. He is not hunting you, is he?”

“Wouldn’t think so.” Rocket pushed the door to Mantis’ room open, paused, turned back to her. “Put him in the dead book myself.”

Mantis didn’t ask why, if the old man was dead, Rocket was still terrified of him.

Afterward, she wondered if it would have made any difference if she’d told the others about what she’d seen, what Rocket had said. Starlord or Groot could have tried to help Rocket. 

They were tracking a criminal for the Harmonium, a dangerous wizard who'd killed one patrol of Harmonium soldiers _and_ a platoon of Mercykillers. He'd fled to a Prime Material plane, a strange world filled with floating islands. Rocket had tracked him to a crumbling mansion within a dark realm, a place set about by dense fog; they'd been forced to land a mile away from the place.

They'd gathered in the galley, Rocket sprawled in his chair while Starlord described their approach. Mantis didn't understand who was in charge, sometimes. The Quadrant was Rocket's, the ship they'd once used held in storage. But the last ship they'd owned had been Starlord's, and Rocket seemed content, most of the time, to let Starlord tell them what to do.

But sometimes-

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's stupid. We're all adults here, so splitting up so this berk doesn't slip through our fingers _again_ -"

"We did not even grab him last time; I don't see how-"

"So he does not _exploit holes in our approach_. Splitting up is the best option."

Starlord set his jaw, and even without her talents, Mantis knew there was going to be a fight. "I'm not comfortable sending everyone off in the middle of this fog. Who knows what's out there?"

Rocket would normally sigh, or scoff, or actually make fun of Starlord for caring what happened to them, but instead he grinned. Not the slightly threatening smile he used when he was going to hurt someone, but something purely delighted. He produced a bag, tilting it over the table, spilling out six jeweled earrings, each a different color. Red, blue, orange, green, yellow, violet.

"That good enough for you, Baby Boo?"

Starlord flushed, but picked up the green earring. "What is this?"

"Stick it on your ear and you can chat to anyone else wearing one of these. No range limit, not like anything else I've seen for sale. So." He was still grinning, to which Starlord grinned, a little hesitantly.

"Alright, this _is_ pretty awesome. Good job, Rocket." Rocket responded to most compliments with casual arrogance, certain he deserved such praise, but sometimes when Starlord said something, Rocket, well, _preened_ was the best word Mantis had. "I guess if there’s no chance of losing someone in the fog, Rocket’s plan is the best one.”

“Damn right it is. So enough chattering and let’s get out there. Remember, no one’s seen him cast faster than anyone else or without his hands, so getting in close and breaking his fingers is a good start.”

And they’d spread out, Drax and Gamora, being the fastest, circling to the rear of the building. It had taken Mantis only a few moments alone in the mist before she began to feel uneasy.

“Is everyone well?”

“Oh! I hear your voice as if you are right next to me!”

“Ow, you don’t need to _shout_ , you giant ass. In fact, since we’re trying to be _quiet_ , just whisper.”

“But then how-“

“Magic. Honestly. Oh, fun fact, you can talk to one person without yarking in everyone’s ear. Just think real hard about the person you wanna talk to and talk normally, like this.”

There was silence, which Mantis took as an opportunity to move toward the mansion as they were supposed to do. And then-

“R - Rocket!”

Rocket’s laughter was clear, as if he were standing next to Mantis. “Wish I could see your face, Baby Boo. Now enough wasting time, let’s get this sod.”

Mantis wasn’t sure if she should have realized sooner something was wrong. Rocket’s silence through the remainder of the mission was unusual, but it wasn’t until they secured their target without seeing Rocket that she actually grew concerned.

Starlord, when Mantis voiced her concern, waved at Gamora to watch their charge, and spoke, the speaking stone projecting his voice to each of them. “Rocket?” When there was no response, Starlord stepped away, and Mantis couldn’t hear his next words. Starlord was scowling when he returned to them.

“I don’t want to sit on this guy while we wait for Rocket to get bored with whatever he’s stumbled across. I’ll stick around so he doesn’t think we’ve abandoned him whenever he makes an appearance.”

“I can stay-“ Mantis offered, but Starlord gave her a dismissive wave in response.

“You’re probably more useful keeping our friend here asleep. Gamora?”

Gamora nodded. “If Groot wanted to stay-“

“I am Groot.”

Starlord turned, glaring at Groot. “If you’d known that, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I am-“

“I _know_ he likes his privacy, but you should know I _worry_ about him-“ Starlord huffed, angry, before taking a slower, deep breath. “Okay. All of you go escort our friend to the Harmonium, and I’ll stick around for whenever Rocket feels like rejoining us.”

As Mantis helped load their bounty aboard the Quadrant, Groot huddled with Starlord apart from the ship, his rumbling voice too quiet to distinguish more than the occasional, “Groot”.

They were both clearly worried, though seemed not to want to let the rest of the team to know. Even a few weeks ago, Mantis might have been worried they didn't trust her, but she knew now that Rocket loathed appearing weak. If Starlord could help it, he wouldn't let anyone else know if Rocket were in trouble.

The four days they spent in transit to and from the nearest Harmonium outpost were tense. Starlord offered infrequent updates to inform them Rocket was still absent, Gamora growing visibly more anxious with each report.

Three days in, Groot lumbered into the galley, drank a gallon of water, and sat heavily on a chair. "I am Groot."

Mantis felt a thrill of fear. One thing she'd learned growing up with a celestial guardian was the power of divinations. There were few ways to hinder the magic Groot had been using - either the most powerful mortal magic, or the will of the gods.

Gamora, though, looked mostly unconcerned. "Out of all of us, Rocket has the most indomitable will, and possibly the greatest desire for privacy. Even if he thought you were looking for him, he wouldn't _willingly_ allow someone to scry for him. So I would advise not letting your lack of success on that front worry you."

"Instead of your front, I would worry that Starlord has not found Rocket yet."

"I am Groot."

Drax laughed. "Rocket _says_ he does not want company, but he is clearly lying. And unless Starlord did something to upset him, I do not think Rocket would be hiding from Starlord."

No one had an immediate response to that. Mantis didn't know about the others, but she wasn't _stupid_ ; it was clear Rocket felt deeply for Starlord. Drax's observation that Rocket wouldn't hide from Starlord was probably correct; Rocket complained about his crew constantly, but usually to Starlord (even when Starlord himself was the topic). Despite the effort he'd gone to designing the ship's lab for crafting work to exact specifications, Rocket almost always did his work within line of sight of Starlord.

And, well, there was the moment he'd stood between Starlord and the Lady of Pain, the most dangerous creature in the Planes, refusing to let her kill him, even though there was nothing Rocket could do to stop her.

Starlord...well, he had less experience than Rocket at shielding his mind from telepaths.

And none of them talked about it. Starlord had made it clear he considered his feelings about Rocket private, and the others seemed to agree.

But if _Mantis_ had someone she felt that deeply about, she could not imagine staying silent about it.

That conversation, though, was the last they had on the subject of Rocket before they returned to Starlord.

Starlord had set up camp, though his bedroll appeared unused and his exhaustion was potent enough to make Mantis want to sleep. He was pacing a small circuit around his camp, rushing to Groot when he saw him.

"Dude, I need you to look around for Rocket _now_. I don't know how far he can get in four days, but he is not answering his sending stone, and I am _officially_ out of ideas."

"I am Groot."

Starlord scowled and turned away from Groot, folding his arms tight across his chest. "For like a _day_. He's not an asshole, Groot-"

"I am Groot."

"Well, not enough of one to make me sit here wondering if he's dead or _worse_. What if illithids found him and they're gonna turn him into the shortest, most deadly mind flayer ever created?"

"I am Groot."

Starlord nodded. "Yeah, thanks." He stalked into the woods surrounding the ship as Groot sat carefully on the sod. Mantis hurried after Starlord, because neither Drax nor Gamora appeared prepared to offer him the comfort she could sense he needed.

Starlord was a few dozen yards away, hands clenched at his side. Mantis paused just behind him, gloved hand a few inches from him.

"I can help soothe your troubled mind."

Starlord took a deep breath, let it out, and then nodded. "Okay."

Mantis had a moment of uncertainty, before she decided to ask again, because even _Drax_ wouldn't allow her to do more than help him sleep. "Peter?"

"Rocket is _missing_. I have _no idea_ where he is, if he's _alive_ , or if he needs my _help_. And I don't know - my dad was an absolute _dick_ , but sitting around worrying about people all the time makes it harder to help them. So yeah, if you can turn off my, I don't know, cycle of panic over what might be going on with Rocket, I'd appreciate it."

Mantis had not seen Starlord cry when both the men he could call father died - neither at the moment of death, or when Yondu's compatriots returned to give him the funerary rites they'd previously denied him. But now, tears gathered at the corner of his eyes, one hand braced against the nearest tree, he was as close as she'd seen.

So she removed her glove and pressed it against the back of Starlord's neck.

His panic nearly overwhelmed her, his anxiety focused on a thousand things that could have happened to Rocket. And then she felt the whole mass of it - his worry, admiration, frustration, attraction, _love_.

Ego had possessed no feeling this complex; Mantis could dull his regret or sorrow with no fear of altering his _being_. But real care, real love, was something so intricate Mantis knew she couldn’t alter it without forever changing how Starlord viewed Rocket.

But there was one thing she could do.

When she pulled her hand away, some of the slump had gone from Starlord's stance; he looked back at her, one eyebrow raised, curiously. 

"Don't worry, Starlord. We _will_ find Rocket, and he will be fine."

"I-" Starlord tilted his head, as if considering something. "I know that. Why do I _know_ that?"

"You - were worrying," Mantis said hurriedly. "Because you care for him deeply. I would not wish to - alter that in any way. But I raised your confidence in him, in us. Because I do not think hope will be hurtful to you."

Starlord stepped forward abruptly, pulling Mantis into a tight embrace; unlike the few times she'd seen him hug Rocket, Starlord hung on long enough that Mantis could recover from her shock and hug him back, gently. When Starlord stepped back, he was smiling, though his eyes were still wet.

"Thanks, Mantis. You're right; I feel...better about this." He shook his head. "This is actually pretty cool; we should have had you doing this all the time!"

"No." Still reeling a little from experiencing the depth and complexity of Starlord's feelings, Mantis slipped her gloves back on and patted his shoulder. "I was used to Ego's emotions, which were more...direct. I risk changing your very nature if I delve too deeply into _your_ emotions."

Starlord gave her a cautious look, but he patted her shoulder anyway. "Well, good thing you figured _that_ out."

Mantis felt pleasure at Starlord's praise, the casual touch. She smiled at him and patted his arm. "I am glad you do not regret having me with you."

"Why would we regret it? Sure, Rocket's a little nervous around you, but you're cool."

"Gamora believes you do not likely me because my powers make Rocket anxious."

Starlord waved his hand, huffing quietly. "Yeah, sure, I worry about Rocket. But that doesn't mean I can't like you. But speaking of Rocket-"

Back at the ship, Groot was still focusing, Gamora and Drax settled apart from him. In the few minutes it took Groot to complete his spell, Starlord began to pace again, still anxious despite Mantis' assistance.

And then Groot scrambled to his feet, face shifting in an emotion Mantis had not seen on him before.

"I am...Groot."

Mantis had never seen Groot uncertain, worried. He always held a sort of level confidence, in himself, in his companions.

She had never before seen him afraid.

"What do you mean, 'gone'? He can still-"

"I am Groot."

"Then we'll go after him! He followed Ego for me, we can follow him - wherever that portal goes!"

"I am _Groot_."

Starlord slowed, stopped, turning to face Groot. Mantis could see, could feel, the determination she'd pushed on him. But she could feel his growing despair, the two emotions in flux within him.

"Then we find out where it goes, and how to open it, and _then_ follow him!" Starlord snapped. "Come on, Groot, show me this portal."

Groot led them away from the ship with no complaint, but as they passed into the woods, following trails of mist that curled around their feet. Something about the fog left Mantis feeling anxious, but as they moved, the fog thinned. Groot's movements became less certain, though, until he slowed, stopped, looking around them slowly.

Starlord, scowling, slapped Groot's shoulder. "Come on, what's the hold up?"

"I...am Groot."

"Portals don't just _disappear_! They go dormant when you're not using them."

"That is...not entirely accurate," Gamora said. "There are t - at least one being who can control portals - create them, destroy them, change their destinations."

"You don't think the Lady of Pain left Sigil - the _Cage_ \- to what, maze Rocket?"

"I said nothing of the sort," Gamora retorted, primly. "Beings like the Lady of Pain and...anyone else capable of doing this are _powerful_. Dangerous."

"So?"

"When Coran the Strategist fought the Legion of Ten Thousand Cultists, he first spoke the the survivors of every battle they ever had. He used that knowledge to plan a brilliant ambush that destroyed half of their force in one attack."

" _Exactly_. Running in there half-cocked isn't going to help Rocket, and will likely get all of us killed."

"I _know that_ ," Starlord groaned. "But if a creepy powerful entity kidnapped Rocket _on his own_ , that means he _needs us_!"

"Which means we need to understand what we're doing before we go in after him."

"If we need someone who understands things, we could go to see The Collector."

Starlord, face still pained, pale, glanced over at Drax. "He only gives us answers when he gets something he wants out of us. And I can't imagine what we can give him _now_."

"There is...someone else," Gamora admitted. "Strange, and capricious, but his people have great experience with portals."

"Really?" The shift in Starlord's stance, his expression, was immediate, as he drew to Gamora's side. "Then why are we waiting here?"

"Because one does not waltz into Ysgard without careful preparation."

"Wait - Ysgard?" Gamora had turned back to the ship, waving the rest of them along, so Starlord hurried after her. "We're not going to try to meet with _Odin_ , are we? From what I've heard, he's not the benevolent dispenser of wisdom you seem to think he is."

"True, Odin is not likely to just tell us what we need to know. So we are going to someone we may be able to bargain with."

They'd reboarded by that point, Gamora waving at Drax to prep the shit while she sat in the co-pilot's chair. Starlord dropped down next to her, quiet. "Who are we meeting, Gamora?"

"...Loki."

"That is extremely unwise! Loki is a chaotic and unpredictable creature, with no reason to their actions-"

Mantis froze when she realized the others were looking at her, feeling her heartbeat speed up in anxiety. "I only...we should be very cautious, if you believe we must speak to them."

"That was my intention. If at all possible, I would prefer Groot and Drax _not_ be present when we speak to them. Loki is a trickster and a liar, and neither of you are well-equipped to dealing with such people."

Gamora and Starlord spent much of their trip to Ysgard debating the merits of different approaches - from simple bribery to threats, seduction, and invasive telepathy. On the last suggestion, Mantis had to admit she was not nearly skilled enough to read a _god's_ mind without his consent.

She was also certain neither Starlord nor Gamora thought having a plan would help them. Loki was notoriously unpredictable - even more so than the slaadi, whose very beings were formed of elemental chaos. Loki might decide, for reasons known to nobody but them, to provide the knowledge they sought unprompted. Loki might decide to kill them all, request Gamora provide them her father's head, or ask to travel with them.

So there was no plan set by the time they reached Ysgard, and the great palace of Odin. The beauty of the buildings, shaped of rare metals and crystal, the rising towers of the central palace, almost matched that of Ego's realm.

There was a great harbor where ships, of the seas, skies, and Void, were docked, and it was there they stopped. Gamora, it seemed, was taking the lead. Starlord was unusually quiet and compliant; it was clear, even without Mantis' awareness of his emotions, that he was brooding over their absent team member.

It was Gamora, then, who gave Drax and Groot final instructions before departing the galley. "You two stay out of trouble while we try to find Loki."

"And what do they do once you've found me? We could send them out to one of my brother's favorite taverns while we have important, adult conversations." A creature, appearing much like a male human, slim, pale, dark-haired, lounged on the vacant chair that, had he been here, Rocket would have occupied. They raised one hand, as if to snap their fingers; Gamora lunged forward and grabbed their hand in a crushing grip. The creature looked down at her hand, curious.

"And what do you worry I'll do if I snap my fingers, little gith?" they asked, smirking. "Do you think I possess the Tesseract, or the All-Seeing Eye?"

"I cannot know for certain."

"True," the creature agreed. "Now, I believe introductions are in order. _I_ , of course, am the god of mischief and chaos, Loki Odinson, but you five - there should be six. The stories I heard said there were six of you - there was a foul-tempered creature - a rabbit, I heard." They looked...disappointed, Mantis thought; their emotions shielded almost entirely beyond a screen of amusement.

Starlord opened his mouth to reply, but then Loki stood, hands out. "No, hold on here. I came here to meet you on the understanding I'd get the whole experience - including the sarcastic rabbit. I don't just show up on every ship that lands here, you know. What did you do with him?"

"We didn't _do_ anything with him; we _lost_ him."

Loki narrowed their eyes at Starlord. "You don't _lose_ people. You lose their trust, their faith, their love, and they lose _themselves_. So how about you tell me what happened before I get tired of you?"

Gamora leapt in before Starlord could say something stupid; as instructed, Mantis kept her attention on Loki. And their amusement gave way to a sense of curiosity, but as Gamora's story continued, it was replaced by concern. Worry. _Fear_.

"Well." Loki sat back against one of the counters in the galley. "If this is _actually_ what happened, I have good news and bad news. Well, depends on your perspective. It might be all bad news. Anyway, the takeaway is it's not worth spending a lot of effort worrying about Rocket."

"You mean he's okay?"

"What?" Loki gave Starlord a startled glance, probably not used to being interrupted. "Oh, no. I just meant his well-being is now entirely outside of your control. Your friend was taken by the Dark Powers to the Demiplane of Dread."

"That name wouldn't happen to be really misleading, would it?"

Loki shrugged. "Not in any way that would make you feel better. The Dark Powers are...aptly named, encouraging and empowering those prone to irredeemable evil. There's an interesting philosophical question whether their ability to lure benighted souls into their dark realm is greater than the Lady of Pain's ability to manipulate the portals into and out of Sigil, which is pointless, I think. If your choice is spending the rest of your life in the Cage or being banished to a realm where your every weakness is exploited until you give into your darkest urges, it's the same either way."

What Mantis understood from Loki's rambling was likely the same as Starlord did, if the sensation of grief, disbelief, and anger she felt from him was any indication.

Starlord stepped up to Loki, almost, but not quite, touching, chin quivering, hands shaking. "Why are you acting like we should just write him off? You know where he is; why can't we just get him?"

"Because when it comes to controlling who gets in and out of their demiplane, the Dark Powers are on par with the Lady of Pain."

"Oh come on, you are _literally_ a god! Are you saying there's _nothing_ you can do?"

Loki raised one hand, waggling it at about chest level. " _Me_? No."

"But you know someone who can."

Loki nodded.

"And what...would you want to tell us how to do this?"

Loki stepped back, looking Starlord up and down, before giving him a wide grin. "For the sake of your darling rabbit, I'll tell you for nothing. Heimdall - one of my people - commands an artifact created with the power of the Tesseract, one of the Divinity Stones. He can see any creature in the Planes, and transport them to or from Ysgard through the Rainbow Bridge."

"It seems cruel to have told us there was no hope when you knew of a way to retrieve Rocket from the Demiplane of Dread," Gamora sniped.

"I said there was no hope because there _is_ none," Loki retorted, with an almost vicious smirk. "For Heimdall to place a creature upon the Rainbow Bridge, he must speak their name. Their _true_ name."

Starlord let out a choked sob and stepped back from Loki, his sorrow mingling with the feeling of the others'.

Because Rocket had not shared his true name with _any_ of them.


	2. What You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet the man who made Rocket who he is.
> 
> ...
> 
> He is not a nice man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW abuse, violence, death
> 
> This is the chapter with this stuff
> 
> If you skip to 'But through the scream,' ironically, you will skip that part and get the tl;dr idea of what's happened here.

"Get _up_ , 89P-13." The voice, gruff, imperious, but at the same time almost whining, invaded Rocket's unconsciousness like a bad dream. The owner of that voice, after all, had been dead for _years_.

"I will give you the gift of a second warning, 89P-13." Rocket pulled his arms close around himself, curling up as small as he could get; it wouldn't help, but biting would make things worse. He didn't open his eyes because he had _never_ been obedient (as long as his eyes weren't open it wasn't real).

"Very well." There were no words after that; the Old Man had no need for sound or gesture to cast spells of his favored school, and little need for magic other than transmutation. There _was_ pain; in his mastery of the art of transmutation, the Old Man had lost the subtlety that allowed such magic to change a being's form painlessly. He could inflame the nerves to crippling pain with cantrips made to bolster the body's resistance to magic. But so, too, could he enhance one's nerves to a point where the act of _breathing_ caused unmatched agony.

When the moment passed, Rocket found his chest aching; it was a common sensation when he blacked out screaming from the pain. Panting, he opened his eyes.

The Old Man had been an elf, once. He was still slim, and his ears still pointed, face angular and elongated, but aside from that, he was unrecognizable as a member of his former race. Frequent alteration had worn his facial features away, so they were blurred and indistinct, like a changeling. His limbs were unnaturally long, bending at impossible angles. In his inner sanctum, he wore clothing that stretched around whatever form he chose to take.

Of course, he _could_ take any shape he desired. He enjoyed presenting himself in the form of a wizened, white-haired elf, a sage of unmatched wisdom, and when forced into combat, the form of a beautiful human man, symmetrical, unblemished, unearthly.

He was bent over Rocket, golden eyes gleaming in the darkness of Rocket’s cell. His eyes were the one thing he couldn’t alter, making his magic useless for disguises. But the old man had no desire to conceal his identity.

When he saw Rocket’s eyes open, the man smiled, exposing his perfect, unbroken fangs. “Good. I would have been...put off if I had found you had died in your sleep. Come.”

Rocket fought back a sneer, a snarl. He didn’t know how he got here, where ‘here’ _was_ , and until then, until he knew how dangerous this vision of the Old Man was, he couldn’t lose his cool. He clambered to his feet, silent, and followed the Old Man as he left the cell. Silent, because the Old Man saw any speech, any noise at all, that he had not requested, offensive. Other habits returned as easily as breathing. Walk two steps behind, to the left. Keep your head down, your shoulders loose. Remember you walked in the shadow of your creator, who could unmake you with a thought.

You were one of your creator’s masterpieces, but like all other creatures, nothing compared to him.

He told the tale when he felt Rocket - any of them - were stepping out of line, or if he believed them unsatisfied with his treatment of them. Of the torturous experiments he performed upon himself to make himself indestructible. How the great wizard guild had sought to punish him for imagined crimes and found he would not die by drowning, or flame, or acid, that words that slayed lesser creatures could not touch him.

His mastery of the art of transmutation had allowed him to conquer death, and so it was his right to do as he saw fit with his creations.

They followed familiar paths through the great tower, coming at last, Rocket saw with relief, to the Old Man’s study. There were others waiting there, and Rocket felt a shock he had not felt when he’d seen the Old Man. Presumably, a part of him did not believe the Old Man was truly dead, while these other creatures unambiguously were.

Sleek brown fur, a lithe, athletic form, all but unmatched in the water. Brown eyes, gentle, worried, looked to Rocket, searching over him for signs of injury.

 _89P-07_. _Lylla_. Unlike Rocket, she’d named herself, something to whisper at night so she could be something other than one of the Old Man’s abominations.

And next to her a blue, long-eared creature with mad red eyes. _Blackjack_. Like Lylla, he’d taken a name other than the one bestowed upon him by his creator. Unlike Lylla, he used it openly, refused to answer to anything else, no matter what punishment the Old Man had inflicted upon him.

“Sit,” the Old Man commanded, and all three of them did, unthinking. The others, standing near chairs, took them, but Rocket, for his laziness, for not anticipating the Old Man’s summons, had to sit where he stood, on the unyielding stone floor next to the Old Man’s desk. “No, you stand; I can’t be staring at the ground when I need to speak to you.”

So Rocket rose, feeling stupid for not having realized that before he sat. The Old Man was proud, and would not suffer discomfort for the sake of one of his creations.

“89P-13, how many schools of magic are there?”

“Eight-“ Rocket reeled from the casual backhanded slap across his face, but didn’t cry out. His answer was clearly wrong, so unbelievably stupid the Old Man wouldn’t waste his magic to use it to punish Rocket. Rocket swallowed the blood from where his teeth had cut his cheek. The Old Man would heal the wound if he decided it was necessary.

“89P-12?”

“Blackjack, your worship.” And that was another thing about Blackjack; he could make anything he said sound like an insult, and spared no effort mocking the Old Man. His latest effort was sarcastic nicknames, apparently.

The Old Man sighed, and Blackjack screamed as his skin bubbled, shifted into something gelatinous, or covered in thick mucous. Rocket didn’t look away; averting his eyes from the Old Man’s work, however minor, was cause for even greater punishment.

“How many schools of magic are there? And _please_ stop screaming. Don’t you think it hurt when I coated my bones with adamantine?”

“Well, if it isn’t eight, it’s one.”

The Old Man raised one eyebrow. “Why?” When Blackjack didn’t respond, the Old Man made a curt gesture and the gelatinous coating on Blackjack’s skin began to boil. Blackjack didn’t scream this time. “No one likes a smartass,” the Old Man said.

And then he turned his gaze on Lylla. “And what do you say, 89P-07?”

“It must be one because all magic is centered on transmuting the world. Abjuration can transmute energy into nothingness. Conjuration alters a thing’s location, enchantment the very fabric of another’s mind. Evocation transmutes nothingness into physical form. Illusion is a pale reflection of transmutation, changes to one’s perception. Necromancy transmutes the soul. And divination alters one’s own awareness, adding to it knowledge that did not exist before.”

Rocket held his breath in the silence of the Old Man's consideration.

"Wrong. On almost every count. But you _have_ proven yourself marginally less worthless than your compatriots." The Old Man huffed. "I don't know why I bother trying to educate you - none of my creations have lived up to whatever modicum of potential they possessed. Come."

They followed the Old Man's hurried steps, Lylla doing her best to keep Blackjack from falling behind, while Rocket followed the man at the correct distance. They arrived at the workshop, where the Old Man settled upon the raised chair from which he could observe all that happened there. He passed a glance across Rocket's bloody mouth and Blackjack's transmuted form, and then scowled. Blackjack fell to his knees as the Old Man's magic returned him to normal, but Rocket had not redeemed himself sufficiently, or the Old Man felt Rocket's wounds would not interfere with what he had planned today.

The room was nearly a hundred feet wide, set with unworked stone, to allow the Old Man to alter it more easily. Today it was a smooth disc, unmarked, set about with heatless torches. Rocket felt his stomach clench and turn. This was what he'd feared when the Old Man had summoned him.

"Come." When the three of them stood before him, the Old Man looked down, his lipless mouth stretching into a grim smile. "Let us begin."

It was not a battle. If the Old Man wished to destroy them, there was nothing any of them could do. It was a test. They had spent long nights theorizing what the Old Man had hoped to accomplish in creating them, to no avail. Some days they tried to survive curtains of flame weaving across the workroom, others vicious beasts with slavering, acid-filled jaws. Today, the temperature of the workroom oscillated randomly between heat that caused their feet to blister on the stone and cold that numbed the edges of their hands and feet. Lightning sparked at irregular intervals from the ceiling, an unpredictable hazard that forced frequent dodges to avoid the worst of it.

So, an easy day.

And then the Old Man stood from his chair, descended in slow, measured steps, and gestured. A staff appeared in his hand, made of three strands of metal - adamantine, silver, cold iron. He grinned, viciously.

"You may leave when you lay hands on me. If I should be wounded, even a little, you will discover the very limits of what tortures I may inflict upon a creature without killing them."

He moved, impossibly fast, unconcerned, into the lightning strikes, untroubled by the temperature fluctuations, and raised the staff. The air near Rocket suddenly twisted into a sphere of winds, nearly enough to lift him off his feet. He tried to sprint away, swearing when the sphere caught him, slamming him roughly into the stone floor before flinging him up and away from the sphere, and from the Old Man. When Rocket picked himself up, nothing felt broken, but his skin felt slightly frostbitten from the chill of the stone below him.

He darted sideways when a lightning bolt struck down, almost getting out of the way; as he nursed his scorched skin, he took stock of the others. Blackjack was leaping ceaselessly at the Old Man, dodging blasts of flame, acid, even pure concussive force, giving no ground but getting no closer. Lylla was taking advantage of the Old Man's preoccupation to approach him from behind. She shifted, always staying in the Old Man's blind spot, until she was ready, leaping forward as the Old Man batted away an attack from Blackjack.

A translucent chain, fifteen feet long, materialized in front of her, ensnaring her within its loops and hurling her away. The Old Man gestured lazily, and as she fell, black, rubbery tentacles whipped up from the ground, catching her and dragging her down. Rocket scurried forward, heart pounding, as she thrashed within the tentacles' hold. He was able to pull her free with some effort, holding her in a careful grip, rather than set her on the boiling rock, to see if she was still breathing. When he saw she was, he shook her gently, until her eyes opened, brightening at the sight of him.

"Always the hero, Thirteen," she whispered.

"You can thank me later," Rocket snapped, setting her on her feet. "We've got to touch an old man."

Ignoring the alternate burning and freezing under his feet, Rocket sprinted back toward the Old Man, who was holding Blackjack at bay with a translucent whip he used to trip Blackjack whenever Blackjack grew close. A whirring noise was all the warning Rocket got before the orb of wind rushed at him; he dove onto the burning stone rather than let the wind sphere catch him again. He dodged as the sphere pursued him, seeing the Old Man summon a translucent barrier as Lylla charged at him.

Trying to move quickly, reducing his contact with the now-freezing stone, something clicked in Rocket's mind. Hadn't he heard of sages who learned to walk on hot coals? There was a trick to it - you couldn't avoid getting burned, but you could learn to ignore it.

Rocket sprinted at the Old Man, ducking when a tight ring of translucent knives began orbiting him. He jumped-

And the Old Man bobbed up a foot into the air, just evading Rocket's grasp. Rocket fumbled with the tight cord he'd wrapped around his wrist, pulled at the energy he'd poured into it-

 _Jump_.

His next leap, buoyed by the magic he'd taught himself in secret, brought him higher than he'd expected, even with the Old Man's head. Rocket had the opportunity to see something rare, the widening of the Old Man's golden eyes, the only sign of the Old Man's shock. Suddenly feeling victorious, or vengeful, or something Rocket didn't know, instead of merely touching the old man, as instructed, Rocket raked him across the face.

The Old Man squealed in shock or pain and recoiled; something shoved Rocket back, and he could see Lylla and Blackjack hurled away similarly. They all hit the ground at about the same time, Rocket with a disturbing crack and flare of pain suggesting he’d broken something. The lightning stopped, and the stone beneath them began to cool, slowly. Rocket shifted experimentally, finding the sharp stab of pain from his chest suggestive of at least one cracked, if not broken, rib, and exposed bone in his leg a clear sign it was broken.

He wasn’t sure if the tightness in his chest was from his broken ribs, a collapsed lung, or the apprehension for what came next. Striking the Old Man was unforgivable. Stupid, too. Lylla did her best to conceal her rebellions, and Blackjack knew just how far he could push. But Rocket, stupid Rocket, let his temper get the better of him, made the Old Man bleed (no matter it would heal), let the Old Man see he’d been studying _magic_.

It was cold comfort the Old Man had promised he’d survive the experience.

The Old Man landed and walked on light feet toward Rocket, pausing when he was only a step away. Rocket didn’t look up; he wasn’t stupid enough to pretend he was worth enough to look the Old Man in the eyes, not now.

“I believe my command was clear.” No response was needed, so Rocket just breathed, shallowly, trying to avoid aggravating his ribs. “I will heal you all so you may be refreshed tomorrow, when you will witness the full extent of my fury.” He spoke no further, made no gesture, but Rocket’s wounds began to heal, burns flaking away to be replaced by new skin, broken bones knitting themselves together. It was not the soothing healing of positive energy, but a raw, excruciating acceleration of the body’s natural healing process.

“Eat. You will need the strength.”

And then the Old Man stalked away in a flurry of his robes, leaving the three creatures sprawled on the floor. They were silent for several minutes, the others trying to catch their breath, Rocket presumed.

“You really fucked up there, Thirteen.”

“Shut up, Blackjack,” Rocket grumbled. He didn’t need a goddamned reminder how stupid he’d been. Not just striking the Old Man, but thinking, even in the heat of the moment, that he was even worthy of facing the Old Man in battle.

“Not gonna. I mean, you fucked up, but cutting him like that - takes real guts.” And Blackjack _did_ sound impressed, which sent a flutter through Rocket’s stomach. _Nothing_ \- well, almost - impressed Blackjack, so doing so always left Rocket feeling, well, big. Worth a little more than the failed experiment of a master transmuter.

“Come on, let’s eat.” Lylla sounded tired, which Rocket could empathize with. _He_ felt tired. And food seemed like a good plan. Being healed by the Old Man always left Rocket ravenous, and besides, anything that took his mind off his impending punishment would sound good.

The kitchen was well stocked, albeit with a tasteless porridge that contained everything they all needed to survive. They each took a heaping bowl and sat at the low table provided for anyone who didn’t deserve to eat in the fantastic dining hall.

They ate like that for several minutes before Rocket couldn’t take the silence any longer.

“You seen the new batch?” he asked. 

“Poor bastards,” Blackjack grunted. 

It was a fair assessment; Rocket had seen a score of creatures in the library, humanoid but...not, struggling with minds new to them, bodies twisted to make what the Old Man wanted from them. Soon they would begin whatever tests the Old Man had for their series.

“What’s he even up to anyway?”

“Ninety-seven,” Lylla murmured. “Ninety-seven groups of innocent creatures he tortured and killed because, what? Because he _can_?” Her voice raised, taking on a new edge until she launched to her feet, tail slapping her chair angrily, eyes blazing. “Out there they say warforged are free, every creature made in Cannith’s creation forges. So what gives him the _right_?”

“Because no one can _make_ him stop.” Lylla looked at Rocket, ears drooping, face slacking from her furious expression. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” she said, dropping back down to her seat. “Some days...I dream of getting out of here. Just running. But-“

They didn’t know what defenses the tower had. They were pretty sure the Old Man could find them wherever they went. And besides, who knew what welcome they’d find beyond the confines of the Old Man’s tower?

“Knowing what the Old Man’s up to…” Blackjack mused, “There _is_ someone who could make him stop.”

Lylla hissed, lunged across the table, grabbing at one of Blackjack’s ears, painfully, by his wince. “Who?”

“No one we’d want knowing about us, sweetheart,” Blackjack chided. “We’re abominations, and anyone who’d object to him making us would object to us walking around like we’ve got a right to exist. The only people who’d welcome us are the Daelkyr, and that’d be a step down, I bet.”

Rocket, though, was musing on Blackjack’s assertion. “What _is_ the Old Man up to?”

“Nothing good,” Blackjack replied, shrugging. “Look, you’re better off not knowing. I wish _I_ didn’t know.” He yawned wide and stood with only a little assistance from the table. “I’m going to bed; gotta be well rested for your torture session. Have fun, you kids.”

Lylla and Rocket fell quiet in Blackjack’s absence. It was nice, being around her. Blackjack was always needling, pushing at things, but Lylla was thoughtful; her earlier outburst was unusual.

After a few minutes she reached out and laid her hand on Rocket’s, a warmth they rarely allowed themselves.

“You’ll be fine, Thirteen. He won’t kill you, remember? And anything that doesn’t kill us is another thing we survived.”

Rocket huffed, anxiety eased only a little. But he didn’t have it in him to snap at Lylla. “ _You’re_ not the one he’s gonna be practicing his torture magic on.”

Lylla shook her head. “No. But I’ll be there for you, Thirteen. We both will. Come on, the three of us? We’ve survived this long, passed all of the Old Man’s tests. This isn’t going to break us.”

She leaned in, pressed a kiss against Rocket’s cheek, so brief Rocket wasn’t certain it had happened. She was smiling when she pulled away, patted his hand gently before she stood. “Go get some sleep, Thirteen.”

He didn’t. The coming torments loomed large in his mind, and Rocket couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep. So he rose, bleary, exhausted, before dawn. He ate alone and returned to the workshop, which was filled now with mirrors, reflecting Rocket’s confused face a thousand times.

“I see you have found my modifications to this room, 89P-13. Do you wonder on the purpose of them?”

“Yes.”

“A curious mind is a valuable tool. But dangerous to the one unprepared for the rigors of the search. What would have happened, 89P-13, if you had stumbled upon the mysteries of the Quori, and your mind stolen away? If you had delved too deeply into the ways of the Dragon Below, and been consumed by the powers there? It would have been such a _waste_. And if there is one thing I hate, it is _waste_."

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't _lie_ to me, 89P-13. It's a waste of both our time."

Rocket nodded, looking at a pair of his reflections on the ceiling, wondering what the display was for. Given that he was already going to spend much of the day in pain, he risked an unprompted question.

"What are you going to do to me?"

The Old Man laughed, high and lilting, almost musical. "Why nothing, 89P-13! Come along, we must fetch your _friends_."

Following the Old Man to the sleeping quarters, Rocket felt a growing sense of unease in his chest, a tightness, certainty something was about to go terribly wrong. Of course he was going to be tortured, but something felt...worse than that. Lylla was already awake, and followed a step behind Rocket as they left. Blackjack made a show of waking up when the Old Man snapped at him to get up, stretching, clambering out of bed, just enough that the Old Man wouldn't be irritated enough to hurt him.

But the Old Man seemed placid, almost content, to wait for Blackjack, leading them evenly to the workshop. There, he patted a spot just below his throne.

"Over here, 89P-13." When Rocket, confused, didn't move, the Old Man growled. "Over _here_."

Rocket hurried to comply, sitting next to the throne at the Old Man's gesture. Lylla and Blackjack looked...uneasy, as Rocket felt. The Old Man pointed, directing them to move to seemingly random points in the room.

Random, until Rocket looked up, and saw Lylla's and Blackjack's forms reflected a thousand times across the walls and ceilings.

His unease morphed into panic, and he turned to the Old Man, half-rising. "Please-"

"Sit _down_ , 89P-13!" When Rocket was seated again, the Old Man smiled, all teeth. "Let us begin."

He made an entirely unnecessary gesture toward Blackjack, hissing, " _Transmute blood to water_." Blackjack made a strange, choked-off gasp, before falling to his knees, panting desperately. " _Bonemelt_ ," the Old Man added, casually waving at Lylla, who screamed as she collapsed, form deflating as she hit the ground. To her side, Blackjack was grabbing at his throat, choking as he suffocated though there was no shortage of air around him.

“ _Mass enhance pain_.” The words, Rocket realized, were for his benefit, to allow him to understand exactly what torments the Old Man was inflicting on Lylla and Blackjack. They each screamed, hers a burbling sound from a throat with no bones, his brief, pained screams as he fought for air. Blackjack’s movements were growing jerky, weaker, and Rocket felt his heart clench.

“Stop, you’re killing him!”

“ _As is my right_ , if I so desire!” the Old Man howled. “Each of you lives only by my sufferance! _Heart clench_.” Lylla let out a whimper as the Old Man tightened his fist, and it took all the control Rocket had not to lunge up and pull the Old Man’s hand away. As it was, he could only watch as Blackjack’s movement slowed, screams growing quieter-

“ _Transmute water to blood_. _Lungfill_.” Rocket gasped in relief- “ _Polymorph any object_.”

Blackjack’s scream twisted as the throat making the sound was bent, spindled, split into a new shape, bones cracking and stretching, muscles tearing. The sad creature fell flat to the ground, panting, spindly limbs collapsing rather than supporting his weight.

“ _Osteogenesis_. _Otto’s irresistible dance_.”

Limbs twisting with the agonizing sensation of new bones growing within them, shoving organs aside to where they were meant to be, Lylla began shuffling in place, moaning as she tried to caper and dance in place.

Rocket turned away, toward the Old Man. “Why are you doing this? They didn’t do anything! Do whatever you want to me; just please, stop!”

“ _Telekinesis_.” An invisible hand twisted Rocket around to face his friends’ torments, another holding his eyes open. “I do not need your permission to do whatever I want to you, 89P-13. I do not need to justify myself to you. But because I desire you to understand, I will explain. I know the perversions that populate your mind, the desire for things you were not made for. _Affection_. _Love_. You are my project, my tool. If I should desire you to produce offspring for my use, you shall. But you are meant to be a loveless thing, and this is your reminder. I do not need to lay a hand upon you to hurt you, so long as you delude yourself into believing you care for them.”

Lylla’s dance ended and she fell to her knees, skeleton fully returned. She was gasping, sobbing, and forced to watch, Rocket felt like he was going to throw up. The Old Man was holding him in place, but it felt like that same hand was constricting his chest, breaths shallow as he fought back tears. They shouldn’t have to pay for Rocket’s mistakes, not like this. 

Rocket looked at the Old Man from the side of his gaze, considering what might happen if Rocket angered him enough. He might kill Rocket, might turn his attention away from Lylla and Blackjack. All Rocket needed to do was get free-

“ _Partial flesh to stone_.” Rocket gasped as his body, from tail to chest, petrified, leaving him, yes, frozen in place. “ _Baleful polymorph_. _Dispel_. _Baleful polymorph_. _Dispel_.” The rapid shifts of Lylla’s and Blackjack’s forms must have been excruciating, but Rocket was helpless, bound in place as Blackjack howled in pain and rage, as Lylla grit her teeth to avoid crying out.

He didn’t know how long the torture continued. Long after even a mage as powerful as the Old Man should have exhausted his magical reserves. What wealth he had liquidated just to punish Rocket, Rocket didn’t know. But his throat was raw from crying, eyes dry of tears, body aching from dehydration. Rocket fled back to his room the moment the Old Man dismissed the petrification, unable to meet Lylla’s or Blackjack’s eyes, much less help them. They were _fine_ , physically. They didn’t need whatever useless comfort Rocket might be able to offer, didn’t need the risks that came with being someone he cared about.

Didn’t need someone as worthless as Rocket.

_What was he thinking?_

Around midnight, Rocket shoved himself out of bed and began pacing, his mind racing. Memories that had washed away in the face of the Old Man’s imperious arrogance seeped back into his mind. Memories of Peter, Groot, the others. Memories of boxing a paladin, a celestial, of wielding the power of two Divinity Stones.

And of what he’d realized in the middle of the night ages ago, in this same bed.

 _He **didn’t** deserve this_. **None** of them did.

He clenched his fist, a growl rising in his throat. He didn’t know what was happening, a memory or an actual visitation of his past, but he knew what happened next, and what he _had_ to do.

The Old - no, he was done building that geezer up in his mind like a god - _Nathaniel ir'Essex d’Phiarlan_ didn’t have the right to treat anyone like this. The only way to keep him from doing so was to stop him.

When Rocket, having snuck into her room, shook Lylla, she bolted awake with a high whine; when she saw it was Rocket, though, her face eased into a smile.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Thirteen. You okay?”

“Am _I_ \- I’m _fine_ , what about _you_?”

Lylla shrugged. “I’ll live. What are you doing in here?”

“We’re getting _out_ of here,” Rocket snarled. “You and me and Blackjack and whatever other gods-forsaken creatures Old Essex had locked away here.”

“That’s a nice thought, but-“

“Not just a nice thought. Get Blackjack; I’m going for the new batch.”

And Rocket remembered this, the thrill of being _done_ with Nate Essex and his delusions of grandeur. The certainty that despite his claims, the one they called in fearful whispers _Mordain_ , ‘Fleshweaver’, was as mortal as any other creature.

He found the wing holding those creatures new to the world of thought and bipedal movement, those who had yet to understand how to bury their own rebelliousness so Essex didn’t have to do himself. Even before he’d delved into the study of magic devices, Rocket had always been good with mundane ones, including locks. So it didn’t take long to force open the door and find himself in a series of narrow rooms lining the hallway, a place hazily familiar. Trying to push, though, caused a memory of pain, and flame, and screams, rising in his mind; Rocket shook it away and pressed on, slamming on doors as he moved.

“Come on, this is a fucking jailbreak! Everyone who wants out of Experimental Transmutation 101 get out here in five!”

And then there were dozens of creatures, sleepy or, for some of them, still unsteady in a bipedal stance, emerging from the cells, looking warily at Rocket.

Some, though, drew closer. 

“93B-04 told us about you - one of the oldest-“

“90C-10 said you and Blackjack - does he really have a name - have been here longer than a year-“

Poor bastards, Rocket mused, as he shook hands (some still qualifying as paws), tried to herd everyone out, because Essex was an elf, meaning they had four, rather than eight, hours before he’d wake.

Blackjack and Lylla were waiting for them in the kitchen, Blackjack grinning, a sharp, delighted expression. He hopped over to slap Rocket’s shoulder.

“What in Khyber’s got into you, Thirteen?”

“I’m _done_ hoping there’s a way out keeping the old - keeping Essex happy. He’ll kill us all one day unless we bust out.”

“Do you have a _plan_?” Lylla asked pointedly.

Rocket shrugged. “Out the front door while he sleeps and scatter - the hags let him set up here because he _doesn’t_ run around bothering their subjects.”

Blackjack shook his head, expression going a little somber. “I’m disappointed in you, Thirteen. Thought you had a real _spark_ in you.”

Rocket’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. “What do you-“

“Sure, getting out of here so we can live it up in Sharn or something is cool, but leaving this place a smoking crater as a reminder what’ll happen if he tries to follow us is _better_.” His frown flashed into a grin, and then he darted in before Rocket could respond, kissed him, brief but fierce. "For luck," he explained, and then slipped over to Lylla, who weathered her own kiss with a smile. Blackjack then yanked open a cupboard, grabbed three tins of toxic cleaning solutions, and, giving them all a wicked grin, vanished into the hallways.

"Now what?" Lylla asked.

"We break out of here." But Rocket paused, considering, as they passed the old ass' study. "Go on," he said, waving Lylla and the others on. "I'm gonna see if there's anything useful in there."

There were only a few odds and ends easily accessible, but Rocket found himself drawn to one drawer he'd never seen Essex open. It took a minute or two to pop it open, and then…

It was strange, that the drawer was full of healing magic. Essex didn't use healing magic himself, his own regenerative powers capable of handling any injury or illness that might befall him. And he'd crafted transmutation spells that accelerated the body's natural healing powers.

But Rocket didn't know _those_ spells, so grabbed a dozen scrolls, a wand he _knew_ could cast _cure light wounds_ , and two others he couldn't place off-hand.

And then, because he was feeling perverse, stole Essex's signet ring off his desk.

A twenty-foot-high wall encircled the tower, a hundred feet from the building, and it was in this space that the fifty or so critters Rocket had liberated waited while Lylla poked at the gates. She glanced back at him, frowning slightly.

"I don't know why you thought I should be doing this; I can burgle wizards' studies as well as the next girl."

"Alright, shove over," Rocket grumbled, pulling his lockpicks out. "And see if you can sort these things." He dumped the scrolls on Lylla as he scrambled up to examine the lock set ten feet up. At first glance, it was fused together; Essex might have used magic to open and close it. But then Rocket found the clever catch, concealed under the edges of the lock, and it took the work of a moment to-

" _Arcane lock_." The lock sealed the moment before Rocket got it open, and his stomach sank, not just with the frustration at the step backward, but the uncertain doom that Nathaniel ir'Essex d'Phiarlan's arrival heralded.

Rocket turned slowly to find Essex floating ominously five feet above the ground, unnaturally-long fingers pressed against one another as he stared down at the assembled creatures with gleaming gold eyes.

"I thought you might have learned your lesson, 89P-13. And yet here you are, doing something so moronic I might have believed it beneath even _your_ stupidity. _Stealing_ from me?" He tsk'ed disapprovingly. "I suppose there's nothing to be done for it." He made a casual gesture and a beam of green light lanced out at a creature that looked something like a fox crossed with a bear; the creature vanished, a cloud of dust settling to the ground where they had stood a moment before. Another gesture, and the stone behind him sealed over the tower's main door.

And that finally put Rocket into motion, the confused shock at seeing another creature _disintegrated_ in front of him evaporating in the face of a real fight starting.

But Essex didn't pay Rocket any notice, dropping his palm, causing twenty feet of stone to melt into mud, half a dozen creatures vanishing into it before Essex turned it back into stone. Rocket found himself watching in a numb sort of horror; he'd never seen what a powerful mage could really _do_ in a fight, only heard the old adage:

Wizards do not _fight_ in wars; they _decide_ them.

Lylla leveled a crossbow at Essex, firing a bolt into his shoulder. Or would have, if it didn't bounce off of skin as hard as stone. A trio of creatures pounced on Essex, who vanished into a bolt of lightning, striking through them and a pair cowering sixty feet away, reappearing within the clouds of ozone rising from the now-scorched corpses. He shoved a hand at Lylla, hurling her back thirty feet as he turned on his heel, slamming his fist down to shove fifteen feet of stone down, sending five creatures plummeting into a pit that appeared unexpectedly beneath them.

Rocket snarled and sprinted at Essex, swinging at the mage with one of the wands he'd snagged, hoping it was _evervation_ or something useful-

Essex's voice rose in a twisted howl of agony as he kicked Rocket away, causing him to drop the wand he'd just used, which was a shame given what it'd done to Essex. Rocket suddenly fell _up_ , flailing for a grip that didn't exist, while he heard a chorus of screams from down below.

Rocket twisted around, trying to see if Lylla was okay, when a deafening explosion rocked the area. He fell to earth, the explosion likely shattering Essex's concentration, bruising his ribs at the impact. There was a crash, and Rocket could see the tower listing. Something like ten tons of rock fell from the roof, plummeting toward Essex. The man swung his hand around, caught the falling stone, and slammed it down - Rocket felt his stomach twist - on top of a group of his subjects.

"I grow weary of this, 89P-13. Did you not cause 89P-07 enough _torment_?" He hurled several darts of flame at someone who'd actually managed to sneak up on him, and then scanned the battlefield (not so much that as a graveyard). "And where _is_ 89P-07?"

A blazing mass slammed into Essex, sending him slumping to the ground, his entire form ablaze as he struggled to stand. Fire dripped from him as he stumbled up, turning toward the tower, where Blackjack stood, a bulging canvas sack around his shoulders. His grin was sharp, vicious, as he tossed a heavy bottle from one hand to another.

"Asked the wrong question, Your Worship. Should've asked where _Blackjack_ was."

Essex began to laugh, the sound distorted by the flames licking along his throat. "Did you think you could kill me, 89P-12? That you could accomplish what all of the Twelve, the greatest arcane scholars in Khorvaire, could not?"

"'Course not," Blackjack said with a casual shrug. "Just wanted to give you something to remember me by."

"You are not _worth_ remembering." A dozen icicles, sharp as knives and three feet long, appeared before Essex and soared forward, pinning Blackjack to the crumbling wall behind him. Rocket felt his breath catch, though he knew Blackjack had survived worse-

" _Heart ripper_." Some distant part of Rocket's mind recognized the tactic from Essex's torture session, speaking the names, the purpose of spells to torment Rocket with the knowledge of what he was doing.

But most of Rocket's mind was occupied by the sight of Blackjack's chest splitting, his heart pulled from his body into Essex's grasp.

Correction.

His mind was _stopped_ by the sight of Blackjack _dying in front of him_ , the shaking of Blackjack's last gasps as Essex tossed his heart aside like trash.

There was a spell, wasn't there, that could fix this? Nothing Essex had, he was sure. But maybe he could heal it-

He fumbled with the wands he still had in hand, finding that the wand he'd dropped was the wand of _cure light wounds_ , which was ridiculous - Essex wasn't _undead_...

" _89P-13_! Are you watching? Are you _watching_?" It was strangely quiet; looking up, Rocket saw the fight was over. It had never been a fight, really. They hadn't had a chance.

He'd forgotten that.

And Lylla struggled in Essex's invisible grip. Essex's skin was blistered but healing, and when he saw Rocket looking, he smirked. He bobbed down, still holding onto Lylla, until he touched the earth and ambled toward Rocket, stepping over the corpses littering the ground.

"I knew this would happen, 89P-13, and yet I'm still disappointed. If you'd just...kept on, 89P-13, you might have proven marginally less worthless than your peers. And yet here we are. Did you hope to see your brethren slaughtered? To see 89P-12 put down? To see me crush the life out of your...friend? Because that is all you could have expected from this little rebellion."

"Wrong," Lylla gasped around the grip holding her in place. " _Dead_ wrong."

And her fur began to darken, patches blackening in a twisting pattern across her entire body, like dye or a full-body...tattoo.

Oh, _gods_.

Blackjack had been _right_.

A madman seeking immortality, that could be forgiven. But if the elves knew what he'd _really_ been up to - if the _dragons_ had known - this place would have been a smoking crater _years_ ago. They'd have ripped Essex's mind away and stuck his empty shell in the deepest hole they could find.

Because the progenitor wyrms, greater than gods, the _creators_ , had painted the humanoid races with their signs, their dragonmarks, to tell the history of the world - the past, present, and _future_ history.

To _read_ what those signs, written in the skies, upon the world, and in flesh, was to understand a fragment of what the progenitors knew.

To _make_ those signs...would be akin to godhood.

The magic holding Lylla in place faltered, and she fell, lightly, to the ground. She reached out a hand, gleaming with red and violet light through the darkened fur, and grabbed Essex's wrist; he was, it seemed, so entranced, he didn't even try to evade it.

The skin she touched blackened, withered, only to whiten a moment later. But then the darkness surged along Essex's arm, up his throat, and then healthy and dead flesh warred for dominance along his body. And at that, Essex threw back his head and laughed.

"Did you think to _kill_ me? I, who have conquered _death_?"

Something in Rocket's mind was trying to engage, to answer a question he hadn't known to ask, but then Essex, with one arm whole and one dead, grabbed Lylla by the throat, raising her above his head, snarling. "It is unfortunate I should discover success only now, when there is nothing left to do but to destroy you."

 _No no no no no_. This couldn't happen; Rocket had already lost Blackjack; he couldn't lose Lylla _too_.

" _Finger of death_."

Essex turned, slowly. He wasn't smiling, but there was something in his stance that suggested he was _happy_.

Because of course, he'd proven he could force enough magic into a creature to give them a _dragonmark_ , to allow them to tap into the primal forces of creation. And what had been done once, could be done again.

And Essex, of course, didn't care how many innocents he had to torture and _kill_ to do it again. He didn't _care_ about Blackjack, whose blood was pooled under his still body, about Lylla, who was dead without a wound on her-

Something tugged at Rocket's mind, about nerves and wounds, about what it'd taken to hurt Essex…

"It was always going to end here, 89P-13. Do you know how I know that? 89P-07 was made to _hurt_ people. 89P-12 was made to _make things_. But _you_ , 89P-13? You were made to _suffer_. And I think I will make sure you suffer more than _any creature ever has_ before I kill you."

What happened next...had always been a haze. Enough magic could do that to you, warp memory and time. The next thing Rocket ever remembered was, panting, bleeding, exhausted, laying at Essex's feet with a scrap of paper held in each hand. Two scrolls. _Heal_. And _regenerate_.

And Rocket felt something - not happiness, but a vicious sense of retribution, and a grin forced its way on his face. Because he knew how to kill Nathaniel ir'Essex d'Phiarlan.

Like Rocket, Essex had been broken and put back together.

But not healed. Never _healed_ , because healing magic put the body back the way it was supposed to be.

People had always tried to _kill_ Essex to death.

"Hey. Your Worship."

Essex glanced down at Rocket, a confused scowl on his nearly featureless face.

"Got you," Rocket whispered, and cast, in quick succession.

 _Regenerate_ , because Rocket was certain Essex had lied every time he told them about the agony he'd endured to become what he was. If he were the type of asshole Rocket had always known him to be, Essex had killed his nerves rather than feel the pain of his transformation.

 _Heal_ , because Essex had forced foreign bodies into his own - bonded metal to his bones, filled his blood with poisons. Because Essex had filled his body with fast-growing cells to recover from any wound.

Cells that anyone else would call _cancer_.

A scream rose from Essex's throat as the first twinges of pain sparked along his entire nervous system. It grew in volume over the course of the next few seconds before Rocket's magic began repairing the bones Essex had shattered to give himself inhuman flexibility, and then the pitch reached an inhuman range as Essex scrabbled at his arms, his chest, his face. Shards of adamantine forced their way through his skin, greenish blood leaking out around them as pieces of metal fell from his body. The wounds didn't close, and others, sores and cuts across his body opened wide, blood running from green to red, streams of silver mixed along with it. Essex's face, already waxen and formless, seemed to be melting as his mouth was fixed in a wordless howl.

Essex fell to his knees, then to his stomach, as his body twitched, convulsed as his nerves went through long-forgotten contortions. He was choking, gasping, on something he'd probably stuck in his lungs to let him breathe water, and when Essex looked up, gold was bleeding from his eyes, leaving them colorless.

But through the scream, Essex was smiling, something triumphant.

"Look...what I've made...of you," he chuckled.

And then his breath rattled, wheezed, and he fell still.

It was quiet for several minutes as Rocket tried to settle, find some equilibrium, a process made harder by the fact there was no one to talk him down.

No one…

Rocket snarled and kicked Essex's corpse, and when that didn't make him feel better, he found the jars Blackjack had brought down (avoiding looking at his body as he did) and smashed them over Essex's body, watching as the body burned. Without Essex's supernatural regenerative capabilities, the flames took, spreading up and down his body until there was nothing but ash (like the first creature Essex had killed, just to prove he could kill them all any time he liked).

With a furious cry, Rocket grabbed at the ashes, scattering them across the courtyard until it would be impossible for anyone to pick out even a scrap of what had once been Nathaniel ir'Essex d'Phiarlan from the rest of the dirt and ash and blood. And then he fell down next to Lylla's still form (easier to pretend she was just sleeping than Blackjack, whose corpse was split and mired in blood) and cried, letting the sobs shake his whole form, wishing he'd been the loveless thing Essex had wanted him to be so he could have reveled in Essex's death without any lingering sorrow.

Eventually, he stopped crying only because it hurt his chest too much to do so. The healing wand had gotten shattered somewhere in the fighting, and Rocket was bleeding from a dozen smaller wounds.

He wondered if he could just lay down and die here, or if he was trapped in the path he remembered, stumbling out into the wilds of Droaam to die there.

"Wow, okay, this is a _lot_ worse than I thought it would be."

Rocket rose, snarling, at the unwelcome intrusion into the lowest moment of his life, the deaths he could _never_ undo, to find a man - human, not particularly tall. A neatly-dressed man, in a suit and neat beard, dark-haired, surveying the carnage around him with...well, a clinical sort of interest, but a hint of...pity, in his expression.

"Who the _fuck_ are you?"

The man turned to Rocket, one eyebrow raised, as if he were seeing something he hadn't expected (and of course he was - there wasn't anything in all the planes like Rocket _except_ Rocket). But he composed himself, and held down a hand.

"My name is Tony Stark, and I'm here to help."


	3. Darklord

Rocket, mostly dead, no weapon or magic at hand, raised his claws at the neat-trimmed man ( _was_ he a man? Was he humanoid?). "How about you take two steps back before I box you?"

Tony raised their hands, spread out, placating. "Hey, whoa! Not here to hurt you, dude. I am here to _help_."

"Don't _need_ your help," Rocket snapped. "And if I _did_ , it would've been an hour ago when Essex was ripping my friends apart!"

Tony backed off at the scream from Rocket, their eyes, sharp, inquisitive, still fixed on him. "Yeah, couldn't really help there, buddy. Rocket. Or do you prefer 89P-13?"

"That's not my _name_!" Rocket snarled, hands fisted at his sides, a step closer to Tony before he knew what he was doing.

"It sort of is," Tony replied. "You wanna change it, we can cobble something together, takes like an hour. But until you do, 89P-13's what describes your, what do you call it, nature."

"Yeah, well how 'bout you call me Rocket, just for kicks?"

"Fair enough. But about this 'helping' business. I'm not here to rewrite your past - don't really have the means on hand for that, not sure how I'd put something like that together yet. The Temporal Plane is one of those places that's hard to figure out, you know? This is a memory - a dream, of sorts - and that means the best I could do is change how you remember it. _Do_ you want to change how you remember it? It'd be a neat way to solve your problem here."

"Only problem _I've_ got is that some sod I've never met is poking around in my memories! Hey, if nobody tossed me back in time, does that mean I've got all the neat tricks I picked up since then? Obviously, someone took all my shit off me, or I'd already be wrecking _your_ shit-"

"Ha, wow, you might have gotten the drop on that old dude, but I have _seen_ some shit, and that means I'm not about to be taken out by a what, you're basically a housecat with opposable thumbs. Look, I just needed to get a feel for your, you know, _history_ before I started tweaking."

"... _Tweaking_?" A thread of unease worked through Rocket's stomach. "I'm _fine_ the way I am."

"You're terrified of a man who's been dead for _years_! Not the kind of guy likely to have someone who can cast _resurrection_ on tap as a contingency plan, either. I got a _lot_ of self-loathing in there, too, which, hey, join the club, but not healthy _at all_. And that's not even talking about what is probably a _shit-ton_ of survivor's guilt."

"Get out of my head before I make you regret it!"

"Oh, hey, sure. The investigative portion is over, so there's no need to sit around in your dreamscape all day."

Tony raised his right hand and

_Snapped_

his fingers.

The transition from the ruins of Essex's tower to a wide, airy room overlooking a craggy valley was less startling than seeing _that_. Because slipping in and out of a man's memories was a power beyond even the Quori, demons of dream whose telepathic prowess exceeded that of the mind-flayers.

But it was _not_ , presumably, beyond a man who possessed the Divinity Stone that commanded enchantment magic. And that was worrying, for a host of reasons. The first being, of course, that a man who spoke so casually about 'tweaking' someone was the _last_ person who should have the power to make people forget portions of their past.

Another, though, somewhere down the list of what Rocket needed to worry about, was that this was the **third** Divinity Stone Rocket had personally encountered. Something that happened once was a good story you could tell people in the future. Something that happened twice was...odd. But when something happened three times, it meant someone was up to something.

Worrying about that, though, would come after finding a way to keep Tony Stark from rearranging his personality.

Rocket turned, cautiously, to face Tony, who looked pretty much like he had in Rocket's dream, though he was wearing a ratty cotton shirt and dark pants, and his hair was wild. There was a faint glow visible through his shirt, just at the center of his chest, which Rocket did not even want to speculate about (it looked like he'd shoved the Divinity Stone into his _chest_ , but you'd have to be stupid or desperate to do something like that).

"So, what exactly are you planning to do to me, here?"

"Do to you?" Tony laughed. "I'm not going to strap you to a table and dig around your brain. I'm here to _help_ , and part of that is figuring out what _would_ help. Come on, I'll show you around."

Rocket followed because he didn't want to test if Tony would do anything if he tried to get away. Plus, getting a lay of the land wouldn't hurt.

"Gotta say, the whole 'kidnapping' thing makes it hard to believe your 'helping' story."

"I didn't kidnap you."

"Didn't exactly come here by choice," Rocket snapped back.

"None of us did." Tony paused mid-step, turned to look back at Rocket. "You don't know where we are."

"You must be a real blood, figuring that out. How in the _nine hells_ would I know where I was?"

"You found yourself dragged out of whatever cozy plane you were in before and you didn't try to figure it out?"

"Yeah, sorry if I was a little distracted by reliving the _most traumatic_ parts of my life! Are you gonna tell me where we are or not?"

"We're in the Demiplane of Dread."

A faint sense of unease curled around Rocket's chest. He'd heard...whispers. "What're the chances the chant I've heard about this place is just…"

"Low. Never heard a rumor about this place that didn't turn out to be true. The Dark Powers that run this place like kidnapping people and shoving them in here to see how they react. I've been trying, on and off, to get out of here for five years, with no luck."

There was something else Rocket thought he'd heard about the place, but the details escaped him. And, frankly, the thought was overwhelmed by Tony's apparent certainty Rocket was stuck here. Sure, Peter would make an effort, but he was not a brilliant theoretical magician.

"Yeah? I could take a crack at it."

Tony hummed thoughtfully. "Sure, if you want. But let's run the tour first, get you used to the place in between escape attempts."

Tony's place _was_ admittedly pretty cool. It was _huge_ \- Rocket had seen smaller castles - and full of neat shit. The dude had _three_ labs, for alchemical, magical research, and magical item crafting, and half a dozen display rooms. Rocket didn't see anyone else in the building, though Tony had spoken to the empty air several times and received an answer.

"That's Jarvis - I started out experimenting with the _unseen servant_ spell, and things sort of snowballed from there. Jarvis sort of runs all the security functions of the house - the kitchen, other appliances, shit like that."

"So it's just you and the disembodied cantrip here?"

"Hey, Jarvis is an incredible feat of magical engineering-"

"Jeez, just messing around, Stark. But really? It's just you and the voice up here?"

Tony shrugged. "I've never been easy to live with. The village down-valley is sort of mine, too - keep the trains running, that sort of thing."

Rocket filed that away for when he needed a minute to himself.

And as Tony finished with the revelation of Rocket’s room, technically “where you can stay as long as you’re around,” Rocket decided to ask the question that’d been plaguing him.

“Hey, Stark, when you talked about fixing me earlier, what’d you mean.”

“Hoo.” Tony grinned and shoved a hand through his hair. “Haven’t gone through this, mage to mage, in a while. Come on, let’s head to the creation lab.”

Tony kept talking as they moved; Rocket suspected Tony kept talking a _lot_. Though, the dude lived alone; he might just be relishing the opportunity to talk to someone who wasn’t just a few spells cobbled together into a facsimile of company.

“A lot of people who get dragged out here are - damaged.” Tony hesitated, giving Rocket a wary look. Rocket shrugged; he knew he was broken, and couldn’t pretend otherwise to someone who’d seen Rocket’s story first-hand. “I set up a scanner - based it on magic you can use to detect teleportation - to sense when someone’s being dragged into the demiplane. And I sort of divert them into this - semi-demiplane where I can get an idea of what’s wrong with them. And then I offer to fix it. Here we are.”

Rocket followed Tony into the lab, filled with benches, some covered with piles of magic reagents, others with half-completed items. Even half-trained artificers made at least one dedicated wright to keep up their work when they were otherwise occupied, but Tony had none. Rocket was pretty sure he was getting an idea how this guy thought. Didn’t trust anyone, for one.

“So what’s wrong with me?”

“What isn’t?” Tony chuckled darkly. “Sorry. My little joke. I see a lot of myself in you. Clearly my dad wasn’t as bad as Essex, but it wasn’t a good time.” Tony hopped up on a desk, folding his arms in front of him. “Everything in your mind, Rocket, _everything_ , is tied to that one memory. You’ve bound up your entire identity in being this abused, worthless freak undeserving of love-“

“And what about you?” Rocket snarled.

Tony didn’t flinch, didn’t argue; he’d done this a lot, he’d suggested. “I can snip some of those connections. Give you some memories that aren’t linked to the literal worst moments of your life. Dull some of the - immediacy of your pain.”

“ _I loved them_!” At that, Tony _did_ flinch (he saw a lot of himself in Rocket; there was someone there whose memory hurt Tony). “You want me to let go of that? Forget that? I gotta hold on,” he muttered, suddenly feeling forlorn; he hugged his arms around himself in the absence of anyone who’d think to offer.

"Come on, no one's saying you need to forget them. But I can change...how you remember them. When you do. You say you loved them - do you want all your memories of them tainted by how they died? Or do you want to remember the good times? I can do that for you - ease the pain you feel thinking about them, without killing the memories _of_ them."

It was a tempting suggestion, the thought of being able to remember Lylla's smile without the memory of that last, angry grin. Remembering Blackjack's attitude without the consequences of his last taunt.

But having so recently recalled Essex's last words, his claim that Rocket was made to _suffer_ , gave him pause. Part of his nature was what had happened to him. Part of his nature was how that past had affected him. Changing that - changing that _this_ way - seemed like an incredibly bad idea.

"Look, what you're doing here - fixing broken berks - is hende, you know. Cool. But I don't think it's for me."

Tony nodded, lips quirking into a little smile. "Fair, fair. But why don't you stick around a bit, think about it?"

Rocket gave Tony a tight smile, a quick nod. He knew a hard sell when he heard one, but planning to get away - hell, _thinking_ too hard about not wanting to be here - this close to a guy who could _change your mind_ was a bad idea. He begged off dinner, citing exhaustion, collapsing onto the bed in his room as soon as he was able. And there he waited as the sun set, as night passed. Tony was an artificer living on his own; the best time to make an escape was just after dawn, Rocket guessed. He spent part of his time prepping a few tools to escape - a quick _feather fall_ to get him out the window safely, _pass without trace_ to do exactly what it said - just basic shit.

It only occurred to Rocket, as dawn was breaking over the horizon, and he clambered up the window, that he'd forgotten Jarvis. Tony'd said Jarvis was his security - what would it do when a 'guest' tried to escape?

So it was with breath held, tense, that Rocket stepped out the window. When no alarm sounded, he hopped down, falling three stories as gently as a cloud, and then off, away from the sprawling mansion toward the valley below.

Rocket had only seen Sharn in pictures, the vast metropolis that boasted every modern advance of magic. But the village Tony watched over could have been transplanted directly from the heart of Sharn. The buildings were bolstered with wards to strengthen them, to hold them, to protect them. _Everburning torches_ lined the streets, flickering out as daylight came. 

And then Rocket caught sight of a tavern - or at least a building with a sign with a picture of a steaming pot - and recalled he didn't know the last time he'd eaten, especially given the time dilation found in dreams.

He stumbled in, recalling only too late that except in Sigil, and maybe the Beastlands, Rocket was liable to attract notice. An orc stood behind the bar, dark-haired, tired, though he offered Rocket a weary smile when he saw him.

Rocket strolled up to the bar, hopped up to a stool, and slapped half a dozen gold pieces on the bar.

"I'm starving and need a drink."

"Don't we all?" the orc muttered, but he swept up the gold and a moment later produced a glass full of something that smelled like the crap Peter'd made when he'd used the Philosopher's Stone to make a drink more alcoholic than pure alcohol.

"Holy fuck," Rocket murmured. "What sort of alchemists you got running around here?"

The orc shrugged. "Just me. It'll take a minute to get you some food."

"Sure, fine," Rocket replied, just _inhaling_ the fumes, which had a smoky, woody quality. It was...Rocket slumped, abruptly, a bitter tang in his mouth. It didn't matter how awesome the booze was; stuck on his own in a stupid hell-dimension, the only point of alcohol was getting so wasted he didn't remember why he was drinking.

A few other people wandered into the building; he heard them chatting behind him. A woman, half-elven, sat next to Rocket. He gave her the briefest of glances, seeing red hair curled at her shoulder, but turned back to the bartender as he returned with Rocket's food.

"Natasha."

"Bruce." They were quiet after that, but Rocket kept catching flashes of significant looks. And, as Rocket was finishing his meal (more or less dense bread soaked in fat with some friend meat beside it), the woman, Natasha, stood from her stool and stumbled; running into Rocket.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Sorry," she mumbled, and if Rocket hadn't seen her sit there eating and drinking _nothing_ , he would have said she was drunk.

At least until he found the folded scrap of paper on the corner of his plate. ' _Five minutes, back door_ '.

Straightforward without actually saying anything, unfortunately, including why Rocket should _do_ it.

Well, except for the the fact Rocket was trapped in a demiplane he knew next to _nothing_ about, probably pursued by a blood who wanted to rewrite Rocket's personality against his will, so anyone offering help was welcome.

There was a dwarf quietly toying with a knife in the alley when Rocket stepped out. They looked up at Rocket, and he felt a flash of shock. A _changeling_.

"Natasha? Or is it something else?"

"Natasha's fine. You're new around here." The dwarf straightened, approached Rocket with a lithe, smooth movement that made it clear, like Gamora, they could tear him to pieces without any trouble.

"You the welcoming committee?"

"In a way. Or, rather, not at all. I'm telling you to get out of here."

"You think I wanna be in this sodding demiplane?"

"I don't mean this _plane_ , I mean this _country_." Natasha stepped up close, voice dropping. "There's places in the Demiplane of Dread where the worst that can happen to you is dying. _This is not one of those places_."

"I know," Rocket retorted. "Met your resident mad artificer."

Natasha suddenly drew back, their face (that which was visible) sinking, sombering. "You met Stark?"

"And yeah, I see why you're worried, but I'm not letting him get inside my head again. Don't need him 'fixing' me."

Natasha scoffed. "I don't think you understand what's going on here."

"Yeah, I think I've got a better idea of what's going on that you do. Guy's high on the ability to muck around with people's heads-"

"Not...exactly."

Natasha's tone, wary, sent a chill along Rocket's spine. "What do you mean?"

"What do you know about the Demiplane of Dread?"

"It's Hell without the demons. People get kidnapped here."

"Hell without the demons - sounds like something Stark would say. It's more than that. It's - the Dark Powers that control the demiplane draw a certain kind of person here. People who are broken - lost - _dark_. There aren't any demons because it'd be a waste of energy. The people here are those most likely to fall when exposed to a world as grim as this one."

And Rocket wasn't dumb; he could see Natasha was going somewhere here. "So what's Stark's story?"

Natasha gave Rocket a grim smile. "You can get out of here, Rocket, put up with Kas or Strahd instead of Stark, or see what gets a guy put in charge of a country here."

Rocket wasn't stupid, but he'd never been able to ignore the siren call of his curiosity - it was half the reason he tended to end up with things in his inventory that did technically belong to him.

Which was why he he found himself following Natasha through one of the windows of Stark's manor fifteen minutes later. He remembered only a moment too late about Jarvis, when a voice chimed out of empty air.

"Welcome back, Mistress Natasha. Master Rocket."

"Hey, Jarvis. How's Stark?"

"The same as he always is. Grieving."

Natasha scowled, and then waved Rocket on. She seemed unconcerned that Jarvis would alert Stark, so Rocket tried to mimic her casualness, even if sneaking around Stark's home while he slept set Rocket's nerves on edge. He kept wanting to step in front of Natasha, even though she was clearly more familiar here than Rocket was. Even if she thought she knew what Stark was capable of...well, he was pretty certain he knew better.

At least until she stopped next to one of the labs, tugging at a light fixture to reveal a narrow but brightly-lit stairwell heading down.

"Look, if this is just a secret murder dungeon, I gotta warn you I've got a high bar on what's 'shocking'."

Natasha, face looking slightly less distinct, shook her head, but didn't otherwise speak - Rocket suspected this place was arousing memories that were putting _her_ on edge. He was distractedly sketching lines along his clothes as they descended, uncertain what he was going to find when he got down there. He wasn't certain he had it in him to kill Stark, who didn't have a neat weakness like Essex had.

There were a dozen glass coffins in the room they found, leaning up against the walls and glowing with runes set along the sides. Inside each was a person - most looked human, a mix of men and women, all appearing to be sleeping.

It didn't take much, though, stepping up to the first one, holding a fair-haired, well-built human, to see they weren't. For one, elves didn't sleep, and the one at the end didn't look like they were trancing. For another, sleeping humans dreamed, and the human's eyes weren't twitching beneath their lids.

Rocket placed a hand against the runes on the nearest coffin. _Detect magic_. Enchantment, high level. Ways to keep someone from needing to breathe or eat while you kept them on hand.

"What…"

Natasha shrugged. "No one knows. Bruce is pretty certain the coffins are holding them in some kind of stasis, so if we took them out-"

"Their minds are gone," Rocket concluded. "Something got inside their heads and broke them." There was no point to speculating what that 'something' may have been. "But why are they down here? You rip a berk's brain out, you don't usually keep him on display afterward."

" _That's_ what gets you put in charge of a country around here," Natasha said. "We call it an Act of Ultimate Darkness."

"Aw, jeez. What did I tell you, Natasha? You were doing so well, and here I find you running around telling people that what - I'm some sort of epitome of human evil?"

Natasha let out no more than a sharp breath, but dodged away from Rocket as the air next to him shimmered to reveal a man in full plate armor - or something like it, as the man was floating a few inches off the ground.

"I've tried to be reasonable, Natasha, but I'm beginning to suspect you're not getting better without _help_." Natasha's face twisted into something - an expression of shock, anger, something else. "But that's going to have to wait. Rocket here is _much_ worse off than you." Tony raised his hand and

_Snap-_

Tony screamed as Natasha darted away from him; he grabbed at his right hand, bent at a painful angle. They passed Rocket, already accelerating, but there was a moment, flesh pressed against Rocket's hand, but he didn't have time to look at what they'd given him, because Tony waved his free hand, and Rocket-

_Fuck_. Sure, Tony could use the Infinity Stone to do anything he could imagine with the power of enchantment. But he was an artificer, and that meant he could keep on hand tools to cast _poison_ , which included nasty things that could kill you, but also the venom of the humble pseudodragon, which just sent you to sleep.

So Rocket awoke somewhere he never had even when living with Essex, which was strapped to a table in a pristine white lab that had _not_ been a part of the tour. Tony had abandoned his shirt and armor for a silvery breastplate that clearly exposed the gleam of the Divinity Stone, a sharp yellow light spilling out from a hole in his chest. Tony was drawing out lines of light from the Divinity Stone, leaving trails of it woven around the table in intricate patterns.

"So," Rocket croaked, "I'm guessing declining your help wasn't ever really an option."

Tony shrugged. "When you're broken enough, you don't know to ask for the help you need. I _know_ that; I've _been_ there. So yeah, I'm helping you whether you want it or not. And you'll thank me afterwards."

"Did anyone _else_?"

And Tony flinched. Rocket's thoughts were drawn back to the people sleeping in that bright room, minds gone, kept alive by magic. People Stark must have tried to help, tried to help _against their will_ , and failed to do so _spectacularly_.

"I'm still learning. Still working out the kinks. And I can _fix_ them, once I've figured it out. They'll be better - you _all_ will! And you'll _thank me_!"

Rocket squirmed against his bonds, because it was so much worse than he'd imagined. He'd seen what had almost happened to Peter when he'd gotten his hands on the Philosopher's Stone - the urge to fix people, even those that didn't want fixing. But none of them really understood what it meant to use this magic to its fullest extent. Rocket had kept Peter from doing something unimaginably stupid, but Tony-

Tony was broken enough not to ask for the help he needed. Tony had failed, and kept going, because there was enchantment magic that could keep his victims in stasis, so long as they were still alive, there was a chance he could fix all this. It just required him to keep _trying_ , tearing apart unsuspecting berks' minds for - well, it wasn't altruism anymore. It was pride, fighting against a puzzle that refused to be solved.

So Rocket needed to get out of here _now_ , which, luckily, being a moderately intelligent artificer, he always kept one or two tricks on hand, one of them being the dumb little bracelet that could let him cast _shatter_.

Tony was used to dealing with mundane folk, it seemed, because the straps parted without any effort, no magic to dispel there, and then Rocket dove to put the table between him and Tony while he took a moment to think.

And fuck - _thinking_ \- that was the key. Drax had told them about his people's greatest martial art, which involved acting without thought, relying on reflex and intuition to do the work for you.

And this was a lab - basically Rocket's second home. He vaulted over the table, claws extended. Tony grunted and waved a hand at Rocket, and something washed over him.

And the Divinity Stones that controlled evocation, transmutation, they were dangerous to Rocket because he was small and not as resilient as Drax. But enchantment? Enchantment assaulted the will, and Rocket had an _indomitable_ will.

Whatever it was, it wasn't the sort of spell that still fucked you up even if you threw it off (dumb decision, Stark), and then Rocket launched himself off the table-

Whoops, he apparently had some nifty magic on-hand to deal with recalcitrant patients, as something tried to grab Rocket in mid-aid. But that was magic you could fight off with sheer determination, so Rocket twisted, continued his trajectory until he hit Tony in the chest, unbalancing both of them. And as they fell forward, Tony reached out his unbroken hand-

Rocket grabbed it with a snarl and snapped it backwards. He'd forgotten, in the moment of panic, how you fought someone vastly more powerful than you. You looked for a weakness, and took ruthless advantage.

You'd have to be stupid or desperate to stick an artifact like a Divinity Stone in your chest. Rocket was betting - betting his _life_ \- on desperate.

It was there, inside a cavity in Tony's chest, held in place by a delicate array of mithril, startlingly easy to grab and _wrench out_.

Tony gasped, his whole body shaking. His face went pale as he began taking rapid, shallow breaths. "Please," he begged. "Put it back."

Rocket snorted. "First, do I _look_ stupid? And second, what's going on?"

" _Illithid_ ," Tony groaned, " _ripped my mind apart_. Tore my heart out. I couldn't feel, couldn't think, had a helm that kept it in check, but then I found it-" His face twisted in pain, something Rocket couldn't quite imagine. Illithids were nasty pieces of work, and could get very creative with their telepathy if they felt like it.

Tony reached out toward the stone; Rocket moved it, automatically out of reach.

The moment seemed to slow, a weight pressing on Rocket's chest, and he found his gaze drawn down to the struggling man, eyes wide as his mind began falling apart, as the nightmare he'd fought off once began to take him again.

Rocket had a choice. One of them would be the stupidest choice he could possibly make. But the other was… _cruel_. Beyond the cruelty of letting him fall apart like this, Tony was the only person who knew what he'd done to whatever subjects he had floating around the place. It would be damning countless others for the sake of Rocket's vengeance.

He snarled and slammed the gem back into Tony's chest, stalking away rather than watch the color return to the man's face, the easing of his panic. He could hear the man shifting, standing, and felt his shoulders tense when that heavy presence stopped behind him.

"Why?"

"Why? No 'thank you'? No 'hey, good of you not to let my brain die after I tried to forcibly rewire your mind'?"

" _How_?" Tony whispered.

Rocket turned, sneered at the human. "What do you mean, 'how'? I sat there and decided, rather than let your brain leak out all over the floor, I'd see if I could kick some sense into it instead and tell you to _fix_ your fucking shit rather than keeping fucking around with other people's minds!"

"No," Tony said, in the silence of Rocket panting, weakly. "How did you decide...not to?"

Rocket turned, and the guy looked legitimately confused. "You _serious_? I decide not to kill people every day."

"But this place...it pressures, encourages darkness. You must have felt it."

And had he? It that moment after grabbing the stone, seeing Tony paling, Rocket _had_ wanted him to suffer. But after that-

"Doesn't mean I had to do it. Now come on - I saved your worthless hide, so I figure the least you can do is help me fix the messes you made."

And well, even with two geniuses working on the problem, it was hard. Because, yeah, starting with his best friend, Tony had been just ripping out people's wills, leaving them drooling messes. And, well, even seeing that, Rocket felt a little bad for him. Because, well, he'd clearly wanted to help. He'd seen the inside of _Rocket's_ head and offered to help.

Weeks passed working together on that, nearing breakthroughs, only for it to slip through their fingers, and then one day Rocket woke to a voice in his head.

'Hey, can you come down to the lab?'

Rocket froze. What the _fuck_?

He repeated this sentiment when he stormed down to the lab. "What the _fuck_ , Stark?"

"What?" Tony looked up from his work, nonplussed. "I - oh, shit, I shouldn't have been poking inside your brain."

"No, whatever, I'm talking about the telepathy. Since when could you do that?"

Tony tapped the glow on his shirt. "Since I got this bad boy. What? Why?"

Rocket had seen Tony's work. Had poked at it himself. He couldn't see a way out of this place. But...maybe if he had some outside help. Telepathy was one of those tricky powers - it didn't usually work across planar boundaries. But if anything could, this could.

Rocket reached a hand toward Tony's chest. "Can I try something?"

He gave Rocket a surprised glance before shrugging, kneeling.

And Rocket pressed his hand against the Divinity Stone, felt the rush of power, the ability to sense, to manipulate the minds around him, but he wasn't here for that, he just wanted to find one mind alone in the planes, reach out and touch it-

'Hey, Pete?'


	4. Reunion

Something was wrong with Peter.

It wasn’t a mystery what. It had been weeks since Rocket had disappeared, lost to the Demiplane of Dread unless they could provide the god Heimdall Rocket’s true name. Groot didn’t know it, had no idea who might. Peter had tried to find an expert in the magic of names, but the few they’d been able to locate had been dead - researching the names by which one might control even gods earned one powerful enemies.

They each dealt with their grief in different ways. Mantis had, on Peter’s request, tried to reach out into the Planes for Rocket’s mind, but on her initial failure, had refused to try again. She was moody after that, though responded well to Drax.

Drax had gotten shit-faced about a week ago; he hadn’t spoken of it, but Gamora was certain he had seen it as a wake, because he was closer to normal after that.

Groot was subdued. They still yet could understand him imperfectly, and he must have missed that. But too, he had lost a partner. A friend, probably.

Gamora...had little time for grieving. They had come across in their travels two Divinity Stones. Once was chance, and two coincidence, but a worrying coincidence.

They had lain hidden for ages, and now two were found. Those who would use the stones would be aware of this. They would be seeking them. And that meant someone should be working to keep the stones hidden, safe.

So she had been directing the Quadrant to libraries and other sages, looking for answers.

Looking, too, for the Smith, the only creature with the power and will to create...what one would need to command the power of all of the Divinity Stones at once.

She lamented that Rocket could not lend his talent, his intelligence to this search, but that was all the sorrow she allowed herself. If she could not keep the Divinity Stones safe, there would be many more to mourn.

Peter, though…

Well, Peter had passed through life in a particular way, and found comfort in familiarity. Wherever they were at the time, he would find a bar and a willing partner or two, and keep on the next day, and the next..

It was not her place to judge, but she wanted to grab him and tell him to stop. It wasn't helping; she could see his misery grow with every passing day, but he clearly had no idea what else to do than what he had been doing _before_ Rocket. She wanted to tell him he still had the rest of them, people who were hurting, too, who didn't want him to destroy himself over this.

But she had no way to put that to words, so she kept her peace.

And then, one day, maybe two months after they'd lost Rocket, Peter burst into Gamora's room aboard the Quadrant.

"What are you doing?"

He was wild-eyed, jittery, but when he looked up, Gamora could see he was grinning. There were tears streaked along his cheeks, but he was _smiling_ , the first real one she'd seen from him in weeks.

"We've gotta get to Ysgard. Come on, get _dressed_."

"Ysgard? Peter…" They'd asked, half a dozen times, but Heimdall had confirmed what Loki had told them - if they didn't know Rocket's _true_ name, he could not find him. She took a breath; she couldn't find it in her to tell Peter to stop drowning his sorrows in sex, but this, she could put a halt to.

"He found us, Gamora. He found _me_ \- he _told me his name_!"

"Who? Peter, what's-"

" _Rocket_!" Peter exclaimed, grabbing at Gamora's arms. "He found the Divinity Stone of enchantment in the Demiplane of Dread, and he used it to look for us, to reach out, and - we're going to _get him back_!"

And then he was gone, presumably to wake the others (Gamora was certain Mantis was already awake - if his _expression_ was enough to go by, Peter was projecting so much joy any telepath on the same _plane_ would be feeling it).

She grabbed her clothes and moved to join Peter in the cockpit. She tried to temper her excitement, wary that this might be a trick or a trap, that the holder of the Divinity Stone might have been aware of them as a danger, moved to neutralize them by tempting them with a lost friend. Such a trick would not work on any of the rest of them, she was certain. It was a terrible risk to try lying to a telepath, Drax too straightforward, Groot knew Rocket too well, and Gamora…

It was unwise to delve too deep into her mind.

But at the same time she could not help but share in Peter's elation, to feel that they really had found Rocket. They were far in the Outlands, but Peter pushed the Quadrant as fast as it would go, to Glorium, and the portal to Ysgard.

Peter was scrambling out even before they could settle, and it was all Gamora could do to keep up with him. Ysgard was the same as it had been the last time they were there, though without Loki there to guide them, guards...tried to stand in their way. But between Peter, who was moving faster than most might expect, Gamora, who had practice evading any touch, and Drax and Groot, they punched through until they were there, at the hall of the Rainbow Bridge, where the dark, eagle-eyed Heimdall stood with a great blade.

"I saw you racing across the Concordance," Heimdall murmured.

"I know Loki said you could, but if I had my friend's name - _would_ you bring him here?"

Heimdall nodded, a gentle motion, and Peter sagged, stepped forward, close enough to whisper something to the god. And he stood straighter, plunged his blade into the gleaming floor below them, and the room, with a window that looked out over the plains of Ysgard, glowed with brilliant, rainbow light. And then there was a sense of motion and wind, of light itself moving like a hurricane, and then, standing next to Heimdall, dwarfed by the god, bending over something, as if he had been working, was Rocket.

"What the hell do you-" The scowl on Rocket's face, as he stood up faltered, morphed into an open smile, disbelieving, _happy_ (an expression Gamora did not think she'd _ever_ seen on his face). "Pete! Guys!"

"Rocket. Is that-" Peter had a hand out, hesitant, uncertain if he were allowed to touch.

Rocket barreled into him, arms up around Peter's waist, and shocked, Peter dropped his arms around Rocket's shoulders.

"I _missed_ you, cutter," Rocket muttered.

Drax swept in and scooped both of them up, Rocket flailing but _laughing_ when he did so. And then Mantis was there, and Groot, and Gamora stepped in because it would be unseemly if she did not welcome her friend home.

And.

The question of the Divinity Stones ( _three_ now) could wait. Dread had released its hold on them, so they could enjoy the moment.


	5. Prologue

His lungs were burning, smoke and the remnants of some poison still eating at them. His arms and legs were bloodied and sore, he was willing to bet at least one bone was broken, and countless other injuries mingled with the exhaustion he felt to leave him almost willing to lay down and die right here.

But he couldn't.

Not yet.

Wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction.

Footsteps brushed through the bracken, moving leaves and grass aside with slow steps. The scent of dust and rot his his nose, and the cautious optimism he'd felt since escaping the tower shattered. He had nothing to offer a hag except the flesh off his bones.

"What's this? What's this?" The crone's voice was withered, weathered, a scrape across his ears. "A little experiment, lost alone where a tower fell. Lost and alone, alone at last."

The word 'alone' struck a chord in him, and he realized he _was_ alone - he'd been the last alive when he'd…

He retched, whether from the disgust at what he'd done (his mouth still tasted of blood and ichor and things more horrifying to imagine), or the knowledge whatever comfort he'd wrangled out of his imprisonment was gone, he couldn't say. The hag chuckled, dryly, as he heaved and sobbed into the ground.

"Did you not always wish this, little experiment? To burn in glory and bring the tower tumbling down around you?"

"Not like - fuck, not like - thought I'd get them out-"

"As if you were some sort of _hero_? You are creature, a beast, an _experiment_. Number Thirteen."

"Don't _call_ me that! I'm not a-"

"You _are_ an experiment! You were bent and broken and remade to prove a _point_. A point upon which your maker found his end. And where shall yours be, little experiment?"

"Not...here," he spat out, blood and phlegm mixing in a puddle beneath him.

"Oh, no, not here. I have seen such scenes, moments of a future far removed from here. I _know_ your fate."

"Yeah? And what is it?"

"To be the stranger and outcast, cast out from where men live, the good you do cast in the shadow of what you are. What you will always be."

He lunged up, claws out, intending to kill, only for the witch's claws to catch him by the throat, hold him up as she twisted him around, face wrinkled and cracked. Eyes pale, blind. "It is a weak man who blames the mouth that speaks truth to him."

"If I'm such a freak, why haven't you just killed me? Huh?"

She laughed, a rasping sound, as her jagged, yellowed teeth parted. "I have seen no fate where my hand takes you, little experiment. Only the torments of your continued existence."

"No. _Fuck you_! _Fuck_ your future! I'm not gonna be an experiment, a _freak_!"

The hag dropped him, throwing her head back as she laughed, a cracking, wicked sound. "Your fate is bound with who you are! As unchanging as the turning of the planes."

And he didn't have the energy for this; he fell back, flat on the ground, taking in the sky. "What the fuck do you want with me?"

"My desires are immaterial."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I foresaw our meeting."

"The fuck - this is why people hate seers, I hope you know that." He sighed, finding his chest still burning with every breath. "Like, do you give me guidance, here, or what?"

"Many have come to me for guidance. They rarely are happy with the outcome."

"Yeah, but what do I have to lose?"

"More than you believe."

"Look, whatever." He waved vaguely at the hag before letting his hand drop. Silence held for a few moments before he couldn't handle choosing between feeling depressed and angry anymore. "What...if I don't want to be a freak for the rest of my life?"

The hag let out a delighted hiss, and drew down, until her wicked fangs were inches from his ears. "Then you need to answer one question: _what can change the nature of a man_?"


End file.
